There is some awe mixed with the joy of our surprise, when this poet, who lived in some past world, two or three hundred years ago, says that which lies close to my own soul, that which I also had wellnigh thought and said.

A vivid thought brings the power to paint it; and in proportion to the depth of its source is the force of its projection.

History is the action and reaction of these two, nature and thought.

The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.

We ascribe beauty to that which is simple; which has no superfluous parts; which exactly answers its end; which stands related to all things; which is the mean of many extremes.

Persecution readily knits friendship between its victims.

The key to every man is his thought. Sturdy and defying though he look, he has a helm which he obeys, which is the idea after which all his facts are classified. He can only be reformed by showing him a new idea which commands his own.